Just a Normal police Inspector
by nurzubesuch
Summary: Some funny little stories from Javert's life. Total crack but in a good way I hope. Disclaimer: I own nothing of this. If you read the description inside you'll know how true this is.
1. At the end of a (typical) Day

**This story is based completely off a performance of Thorsten Sträter, a very smart satiric artist in Germany. His dry humor is just hilarious and I simply can´t help myself, it reminds me too much of Javert, so I imagine HIM in some of the stories he makes up. **

**So, generous as I am, I translated the genius of this man, for all of you to enjoy. I sure hope you do.**

**Disclaimer: If you still didn´t notice, I own nothing of this.**

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><p><strong>At the end of a (typical) Day of Retirement<strong>

One thing has to be said before any other. Retirement had not been Javert´s idea. Not really. Patrolling the streets had been his life and ever since he´d been politely asked to finally retire, he had kept away from it, with a stubborn easiness. Now he spent most of his time at home, did not leave the house very often and day after day had taken on a very comforting regularity. One he could rely on.

Somehow calming to know that his schedule was as well planned and organized as it had been when he´d still worked his shifts. Well timed and always on schedule, easy to note down in his little book, a habit he had never really parted with.

Just like today.

**...**

8 a.m. The day begins. Coffee.

8:02 a.m. Out of filter bags. To keep living seems impossible.

Why is there no alarm attached to those things? One that warns you and tells you: Buy some new, idiot. Maybe filter bags could come with one of those little microchips you knew from birthday cards that played songs. "The End" would be a good idea to convey the message. Or maybe "It can´t go on forever" Just something. Why couldn´t it be like that, dammit?

Maybe because it wouldn´t work for him anyway. What Javert did in the mornings happened on absolute mental emergency power. There could be a shaved Zebra sitting in his living room and call out for him: Morning! Care for a game of cards? He would only nod, walk into the bathroom and forget about the Zebra forever.

It was quite possible that Javert once in his life invented a new groundbreaking computer chip or discovered a so far unknown island. If he did it in the morning he would never know. So how was he supposed to remember buying new filter bags?

8:32 a.m. When you make coffee without filter bags it tastes much more spicy. But it also has a texture like peat. At least it saves the cereals.

**...**

8:57 a.m. It knocks. His neighbor. He´s a police man too, not yet retired, and a pretty nice guy all in all. A family man. His grandmother lives upstairs. It´s a multigenerational house. Someone is always home. Which made for the pretty convenient arrangement that the postman usually delivers Javert´s packages to this family.

Before he used to knock on Javert´s own door of course, but one day he´d made the mistake to deliver a package very early in the morning. Javert had not yet had his coffee, opened the door unaware that he was still naked and since he could not by the love of God remember the words Good Morning, called out instead … Cock-a-doodle-doo.

Ever since that day the postman had wisely avoided to knock on Javert´s door, and delivered the packages to his neighbors instead. And his neighbor, good guy that he is, always brings it over to him. Every day.

Javert only orders things he really absolutely needs. Like the gun shaped flashdrives or the lampshades with low beam. His neighbor sets the huge package down on his doorstep. Javert knows what´s inside. First, the motive calendar "Bread", with twelve very calming photographs of Bread. And second a very useful high-pressure cleaner. He´d always wanted to have one of those. When he´d seen the special offer on QVC he´d taken it.

"I´m fed up with this, Javert!" his neighbor yells. "Your life has absolutely no structure. You´re only consuming, nothing more. Do you order so much because you´re lonely?"

"I´m not lonely." Javert responds. "You visit every day, don´t you?"

"Dude, get a pet, goddammit. Or a hobby at least. Go to the theater or something. And stop ordering all this shit."

**...**

9:02 a.m. The high-pressure cleaner is all unpacked and set up. How much time does a man need every single day to wash his face with a facecloth? Minutes! From now on Javert would save a lot of time.

He foams up some soap, covers his face with it and aims the high-pressure cleaner at his own face.

**...**

9:13 First impressions:

Javert consciously registers several things at once. First his face was very clean. Second: The wall behind him is no longer covered with wallpaper. Three the cleaning process could be described as uncomfortable. And Four: A man appears a tiny bit incomplete without eyebrows.

**...**

9:53 Javert decides to test the high-pressure cleaner in his driveway. Before he can get started he notices something, sticking to the door of his car. A screamingly colorful little card, reading: We buy your car. Today, Tomorrow, Anytime. Just call. We pay in cash.

Sure, Javert thinks. Someone who empties all the color from his printer for one single card is surely a generous character. He knows that kind of shady business from his days at the police. And even though he was repeatedly told not to interfere with police investigations or start any of his own, he instantly calls the number. After eight rings a gruffly highly accented voice answers him.

"What yo want?"

"Bonjour." Javert spoke. "Is this the vehicle firm, that sends idiots through the streets at night, to unlawfully put harlequin-messages to the cars of respectable people?"

He can hear the other man think for several minutes. Then: "No. No no no. We only buy and sell … other things."

"Aha." Javert replies. "What other things?"  
>"Everything." the man answers.<p>

"Everything what?"

"Simply everything." the man repeats and for some reason, Javert spontaneously remembers what his neighbor said earlier: "Javert, get a pet, goddammit."

And so he asks: "Do you sell reptiles?"

**...**

11:49 a.m. How long does it take for a dishwasher to clean your dishes? Long. But if you own a high-pressure cleaner this time shrinks down immensely. Consequently Javert had arranged all his knifes, forks, spoons and plates on the grass before the house, applied some dish soap and put the high-pressure cleaner to maximum.

Hard to describe what happens when you do that. It´s like magic. But hardcore.

**...**

1:45 p.m. It knocks on the door. Javert looks through the peephole and sees a dark skinned man, holding a huge package. And the package is moving.

Javert stays silent until the man turns and knocks on his neighbor´s door. The good man seems not fond about the idea to take this package. In this moment the paper tears apart, revealing the grown crocodile Javert has ordered from the card guy on the phone. Like a bolt of lightening it wrings itself out of the package and into the house of Javert´s neighbor.

Approximately eight seconds later the evacuation is initiated.

As an always interested neighbor, Javert steps out of the house as well.

In high panic appear the still active police man, his grandmother, and the crocodile. Unexpectedly Javert feels himself fondly reminded of his childhood and the always well visited performances of the Punch-and-Judy show.

His neighbor draws his gun and starts shooting.

The dark skinned man takes cover and Javert dives into his car. He starts the engine and the radio springs to life, while police man, grandmother and crocodile approach steadily. In the radio they broadcast a warning for drivers to watch out for some strange silverware covering the highway.

Javert drives off.

**...**

5:58 p.m. After returning home, Javert glances out the window. Animal control has done a good job cleaning up out there, but he believes his neighbor feels a need to talk to him. Alone Javert doesn´t see why. The pet had been his idea after all, and Javert had tried to follow his advise. And in some way he´d been to the theater too, just like he´d said. So no reason to be mad at him.

Anyway. He figures a civilized talk will do no harm. Maybe over some coffee. He believes he still has everything necessary in the house.

* * *

><p><strong>I´m always grateful for people to tell me what they think. Did you laugh? Did you not? Are you frowning right now, wondering: Was that supposed to be funny? What did I just read? <strong>

**Anything at all is welcome. Just don´t hold back. I simply want feedback, good AND bad.**

**Cheers.**


	2. The blessings of the Internet

**This particular chapter came about with the generous support of Dieter Nuhr (great comedian and philosopher) so I once again refuse any credit for what you are about to read. The words, thoughts and descriptions were born from the mind of this genius among Germany´s comedy elite. **

**Enjoy.**

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><p><strong>The blessings of the Internet<strong>

Javert stormed into his office, banging the door loud enough to make a picture fall off the wall. He didn´t care. What he had just been forced to see was enough to finish his believe in humanity for at least a month. Duval, one of the better inspectors of this station-house, had seriously used his office computer to watch porn in his lunch break. Disgusting.

Unbelievable how much of an animal a human being could be. After so many billions of years of evolution, the human race had advanced far enough to invent something as groundbreaking as the internet and what was it mainly used for, at least according to statistics? Porn. 30 % of the worldwide data traffic was used for something as primeval as porn. Ridiculous. Especially since Javert secretly suspected that this – among others of course – was the reason for the steadily increasing internet surveillance by NSA, CIA and half a dozen other organizations worldwide.

No one could tell him that these guys only watched out for political information. There had been a time when he would have believed that. But not after what he´d seen today. Duval had not been doing research for his cases either.

Stupid. Just stupid. Who was watching such stuff anyway? What for?

But there truly was so much of this stuff on the internet, it was crazy. Even if you tried your best it was hard to avoid these things. Sometimes when Javert walked the streets, he couldn´t help but think, with this insane number of porn being out there, at least every second woman he saw in the street must have – statistically – taken part in one of these movies at least once in her life. Only he wouldn´t want to guess which one of them.

Anyway, Javert had no comprehension about such things. Watching porn was pointless. Movies that held such a small amount of dialogue and plots as weak as the spine of a jellyfish were not interesting in any case.

If you knew one you knew them all.

Really.

And it was always the same things that happened anyway.

Always.

Postman rings the bell, finding the lady of the house, to his big surprise, dancing. While doing so she constantly puts her index-finger into her mouth. The reason for this is of course for dramaturgical reasons not explained any further. Most likely because art is supposed to have something secret to itself.

However, fact is she has music on and wears straps. Convenient. It´s past breakfast after all.

Since our postman considers himself a service provider, he dutifully begins to mate with the young lady.

As the young and attractive housekeeper joins in, the affection between lady of the house and housekeeper is suddenly revealed. They leave the postman out of the picture and start rubbing each other. Meanwhile the third-party logistics provider takes a seat in the armchair and idly watches.

Blend over.

A car mechanic rings the bell.

He is accompanied by his assistant.

Both men are well built, tattooed multiple times and sexually very indigent.

So of course the ladies separate and attend to the new guests, while the friendly man from the postal delivery service, curiously wanders off to check the rest of the house, and – the devil must have wanted it – finds the bedroom where yet another willing cousin lolls.

The young lady with the killer boobs is wearing red straps and a corsage, and has already begun stimulating herself, foresightfully, because she guessed a postman could be visiting soon. While doing so she´s licking a rubber toy. Why not, it was a free country, everyone was free to do whatever they wanted within the walls of their own home.

So the young cousin attends the visitor right away. In this house people are always prepared for the visit of stock bulls ready to mate.

Only yesterday the plumber was there.

A short flashback draws the audience into the memory of this obviously with hormones strongly oversupplied young cousin.

The electrician had joined the plumber, while the attractive neighbor came over to borrow some nuts for a cake. She got four of the wanted goods.

The end of the dream sequence introduces the dramatic climax of the blockbuster.

While electrician and plumber surprisingly returned to check on their work of the day before, and all the relatives, friends and some other characters that are not named any further, are either naked or wearing flimsies have joined the gathering, the general knotting together starts. According to the process of mating and conform with the idea of gender equality, the seminal fluid of the gentlemen is distributed equally and fair among the present ladies.

Probably some ritual of consecration, Javert had never really understood that.

Anyway the movie would end at this point and most of the audience would probably ask themselves, why is never anything like this ever happening to ME?

Javert shook his head. People could call him naïve and worldly innocent all they wanted, but to him such movies felt highly unrealistic.

Sometimes he wondered. Mankind considered themselves as the crown of creation. And yet … some animals seemed to have much smarter ways to deal with things. The bonobos for example used the previously mentioned process of intercourse to solve really absolutely every kind of problem that came up within their community. And for those little monkeys it worked.

Javert highly doubted that Duval or any of his inspectors were trying to solve any problems, other than the obvious. It was also very unlikely that they would manage, even if they tried to use it for such a purposeful action.

Javert closed his eyes, slowly rubbing his temples. His migraine was beginning to knock on the door. Maybe it was time for another office outing to the boot camp. Last time it had worked wonders. That and child safety at the office computers.

* * *

><p><strong>I´m not a comedy genius like my providers for these chapters are, so I can only hope that I translated the fun. Let me know, okay? <strong>

**In any case I hope I managed to make you laugh, at least half as much as I did while listening to this piece.**

**Cheerio!**


	3. Diet Diary

**Diet Diary**

**I admit the last chapter was not THAT good. Dieter Nuhr has to be heard, not read. So I stick to Torsten Sträter again. His pieces are almost as if he wanted to make it easy for me to write it down. Enjoy this jewel.**

**Again: this is NOT from me. I only translated it.**

* * *

><p>It hadn´t been Javert´s idea to diet. But when you got told, be it in a friendly teasing way or not, by your mayor over and over, that you were developing a ring of too much muscles around your lower half, even the most stubborn mind started thinking.<p>

An inspector had to be in good shape. Criminals didn´t run slowly just because he asked nicely. So dieting was technically part of his duty. And being the man he was, Javert went to it very methodically.

It wasn´t pretty.

This is what was found in his notebook, about the events that took place.

**...**

November the 12th

7:00 a.m.

Making breakfast. While the deep fat fryer heats up I suddenly remember: I´m dieting.

I switch off the deep fat fryer and eat a banana.

On the internet I read coffee contains only one calorie each mug. Great.

**...**

7:30 a.m.

Drank 22 cups of coffee and by now I´m sure I can see dead people.

Caffeine is infernal stuff.

I eat another banana.

**...**

8:00 a.m.

Reach the station-house. Duprey the desk sergeant on duty asks why there´s remoulade sauce on my shirt. I explain to him that banana pure tastes too much like fruit.

As if the devil wanted it the mayor is there this morning.

I reluctantly affirm that I´m dieting.

He tells me I must drink a lot.

**...**

8:17 a.m.

Sent the new rookie out to buy four crates of water. To empty five bottles I need only nine minutes.

The mayor visits my office on his way to the meeting with Gisquet and with a smirk hands me a paperweight. For motivation, he says. It´s a chocolate frozen in acrylic resin.

I drink some more water.

One after the other the dead people fade away.

**...**

8:45 a.m.

I need to pee.

**...**

9:00 a.m.

I need to pee.

**...**

9:05 a.m.

I need to pee.

**...**

9:07 a.m.

I need to pee.

**...**

9.12 a.m.

Gisquet asks me to join the meeting to contribute my opinion on the budget. I have a quick look at it, nod determined, and need to pee.

**...**

9:30 a.m.

Morning break. I throw a long glance at the mobile deep fat fryer in my desk drawer. I laugh grimly.

After 15 minutes of grim laughing the desk sergeant comes in and asks why I´m crying.

I want to shout at him to mind his own business but I can´t, due to an urgent appointment: I need to pee.

**...**

10:00 a.m.

Time for a snack. Is a bar of chocolate okay? Of course not.

I eat another banana.

The mayor stops in my office again, and reminds me to join the meeting again at 11:00 a.m.

I eat another banana.

The mayor mentions he´s sure I´ll get through this diet.

I eat another banana.

The mayor tells me to be strong. Healthy mind, healthy body and so on.

I nod. And eat another banana.

The mayor watches me.

I watch him how he watches me and eat another banana.

**...**

10:30 a.m.

I sit on the john and am terribly constipated. But peeing works just fine.

**...**

10:55 a.m.

The meeting has to be held in the restroom. As far as I can hear it from behind the door, everyone´s there.

At point three on the list, the constipation loosens magically.

I drown out the arising background sounds by delivering a high-volume lecture.

The toilette looks like being hit by a terror attack.

**...**

11:40 a.m.

I check the internet. Our station-restroom is already on youtube.

**...**

12:00 a.m.

Regarding the paperweight with the chocolate inside. What a mess.

** ...**

1:00 p.m.

I need to eat something!

I get the word that in the meeting they debate about demolishing the restroom for being a hygiene hazard.

So bananas are not an option.

**...**

2:45 p.m.

Regarding the paperweight with the chocolate inside. Such a silly idea, who the hell is supposed to be motivated by that?

Sniffing the table calendar with the pictures of bread. Smells badly. At least the day is halfway done.

**...**

3:00 p.m.

I´m not feeling well.

**...**

4:00 p.m.

The assistant doctor tells me the anesthetic has no taste at all but I have to put on the mask and take a deep breath anyway. I ask him if I will be able to go back to the station-house until 5 p.m.

He expresses mild doubts. After all they first have to open the abdominal wall to take out the paperweight.

** ...**

7:00 a.m. next morning

Medical round. The head doctor tells me to take out the paperweight was very easy. Only the desk calendar had been kind of wedged.

Will have to stay at the hospital for at least three more weeks. Bland diet.

Within three weeks I lose 23 kilos.

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><p><strong>I don´t know about you, but my sides hurt after I heard this piece of comedy genius. That´s how it happens. You click on a six minutes video, don´t think any evil, and you have no idea what you get yourself into.<strong>

**Nothing can prepare you for this guy´s pityless dry humor. Or at least ... nothing can prepare ME for it. **

**Care to share YOUR impressions? Please, don´t hold back.**

**- Nur**


	4. The man in the Machine

**Disclaimer: This whole thing below is again based on Torsten Sträter (like almost every chapter) mostly satirically criticizing recent political and sociological conditions. But aside from that I simply found it hilarious. I hope you´ll enjoy it too. Have fun.**

**I also wanna mention that the chapters of this collection are in no way related to each other. Each of them can be read as a standalone, and especially this one. You´ll see why when you read it.**

* * *

><p><strong>The man in the Machine<strong>

It had been a tough time for Javert lately … these last few years. He´d been a prison guard for as long as he could remember in his career with the police, and in the beginning it had been good. But after almost ten years of doing the same duty day after day, even the most modest character started thinking.

Javert knew it wasn´t easy to work himself up the ladder, especially with his migrant background. But dammit, one day it just had to go ahead, right? He couldn´t stay where he was, not forever. He was righteous. He deserved some promotion at some point. Right?

Not that he was complaining. Complaining would be wrong. Complaining was nothing better than whining and even more important, it meant the person doing so did not understand that reward was given by God to us all in our time.

Thanks God Javert knew that. He firmly believed it was never too late for a happy childhood, and … he saw it got better.

And he knew the exact day to the minute when it started to get better. It was the day when he met the man in the machine.

**...**

It had been a day like any other. Early morning, facing grumpy faces wherever he looked … It wasn´t that he couldn´t understand it. The minimum wage was coming, there was no way around it.

Javert was all right with that. People who did honest work should also be rewarded that way. It would only be just. The only catch was that soon employers might decide on their own that an hour of work, would contain 350 instead of 60 minutes. But that was still pure guessing.

Javert didn´t care much. He was payed just enough for his work. What bothered him more was the long way he had to walk to get down to the vending machine for a coffee.

It was a huge machine. Javert had never really payed much attention to it. But on this fateful day in time, this should change forever.

He put in his money and pressed the button for coffee.

He waited.

Nothing happened.

He kicked against the machine, pressed the return button, but nothing happened.

He rattled again on this stubborn machine. Then he heard the following:

"I´m taking a leak, for cry out loud."

Javert froze.

"Come again?" he said.

"You can get a chicken soup." the voice replied. "I can just about reach that one."

Javert could not believe his ears.

"Who is that?"

"My name is not important. Coffee takes another minute."

Javert could hear the sound of toilet paper being torn off. Someone was in this machine!

"I think I pass the coffee, thank you." he said.

"No, you entered into a legally binding purchase agreement." the voice answered, stubbornly.

"I revoke."

"You wish."

It made shruuunnnng. And there was a plastic cup. Coffee poured into it.

"How the hell did you get in there?" Javert demanded to know.

"Not your business." was the grumpy answer.

"All right." Javert replied dryly. "Then I will have to call the fault-clearing service. There´s the number right here at the machine."

"That´s blackmail." the man complained.

"That´s right." Javert answered.

For over a minute he heard nothing. Then there was a sigh. And the man in the machine told him his story.

**...**

As an unemployed pruner with over nineteen years of no work experience, he once came across a job opening in the newspaper.

"Job on oil platform. Great earnings."

The job interview had happened in an old Ford with running engine, somewhere on a curbside near Montfermail. That´s a pity, so they told him. The job on the platform was given to a single mother only yesterday. But they had something similar. Same timetable, minimum wage was guaranteed, only it would be a little tight.

That is how many financially desperate people agreed to live inside a vending machine, to make hot beverages in the dark. Inside this machine is a tiny living space. Water boiler, blanket, Men´s Health magazines. Many people coming from the slums of Saint Michelle find the unorthodox environment as a gain at first, but on the long run it kind of lacks stimuli. Even Javert could see that.

The man never told him his name. And yet they became friends.

Maybe it was because they could talk about absolutely everything. He told Javert about his unsuccessful tries as an entrepreneur. He´d opened up a factory for T-shirt printing. A year later he was forced to hang a T-shirt into his own window, that read: I´m broke. Ironically enough it turned out to be his best seller. It was purchased over 40.000 times.

With the gains he payed off his old depths and was broke again. That was when he saw the job opening and moved into the vending machine.

Javert told him in return about his troubles with the nitpicking and arrogant chief secretary. The one person he secretly believed was the reason why he was never considered for a promotion. She hated gypsies. Everyone knew it.

One morning, when the dame came to get herself a cacao from the vending machine, suddenly instead of a plastic cup, there hung a penis from the vending machine.

The woman ran away with flying arms, crying all the way: "There´s a penis in the vending machine!"

Needless to say this behavior seemed to lack a lot of sovereignty, and didn´t read well in her personal file.

**...**

Javert´s friend in the vending machine opened up a whole new world for him. One day he smuggled some LSD through the coin slot, and his friend gave it out. Two hours later, everyone who had had chicken soup, entertained themselves drooling in a world cup of sack race. It was not taken well by the commanding officers.

At least the porter was standing uptight. One barely noticed that he was stoned from top till bottom. Except when he answered the phone, because then he told everyone who called: "Napoleon here, good afternoon, God is an inflatable penguin, how can I help you?"

**...**

As the only guard who could still think straight, Javert quickly climbed up the ladder. Especially since he smuggled hard alcohol into the vending machine, more and more often. On an epochal Tuesday, the latte macchiato was made to 88% of real moonshine and one of their transport drivers managed it to CNN live when he tried to drive down a rollercoaster with his – luckily empty of prisoners – bus.

The try was unsuccessful. But it had a certain entertaining value not least because of the helicopters.

**...**

And then one day, there was no coffee anymore. The machine was silent. No answer to Javert´s calls, whatsoever. And Javert knew what that meant.

In the night he put the machine into a van, drove until he reached the little town of Montreuil-sur-Mer – where he was soon to start his new post as an inspector – dug a deep hole, and buried the whole thing at the beach.

The moon was shining. As were the stars. And Javert cried. He´d never had a friend like that. But he´d never had as much fun in life either, before him. He owed him his career, his promotion to the rank of an inspector. Practically everything.

Javert turned around to leave this place, and move on with what might be left of his life from here. And that was the moment he heard the voice.

"Hello?"

Javert halted, turned back. For a moment there was nothing.

And then: "Ever considered going into politics?"

There was a hint of humor in this question, and Javert found himself smirking. Maybe he had been right all along, he thought when he grabbed the shovel. It was never too late in life, to have a happy childhood.

* * *

><p><strong>Maybe not the most hilarious one in the line, but it was the first one I ever wrote off of Sträter´s pieces. Consider it an alternative reality bit. And don´t forget to tell me your thoughts.<strong>

**Until then. Cheerio.**


	5. Depression

**Depression**

Never in a thousand years had it occurred to Javert that someone like him could seriously suffer from something as ridiculous as depression. But as it seemed that was exactly what had happened. And that despite the fact that he was a completely normal person.

Yet, considering the fact that he was occasionally depressive, he still made the greatest coffee, at least by his own standards. Pity was therefor totally unnecessary.

It only bothered him a little that some people still mistook depression with the so called "being down". There was a big difference. To illustrate this difference to the smaller minds he liked to call upon a simple movie analogy. He then said: being down is like an episode of CSI with the Muppets as special guests. Not the greatest thing in the world, but it passes. Depression on the other hand is like all three parts of Lord of the Rings. In slow motion. With Jean-Claude Van Damme in the role of Gandalf and music from Justin Bieber.

Most people got the difference.

Javert himself understood it only when suddenly he realized that at home he didn´t get anything done anymore. Stacks and stacks of old papers he hadn´t gotten around to carry down to the trash cans, a sink that was not visible anymore underneath the dirty dishes and laundry that stood not lay in the bathroom and also everywhere else in his place.

It wasn´t easy to admit it. Privately Javert was already just a medium-cheery person. Not one who sang pirate songs while sitting on the john. But one day even he noticed: the zombi-apocalypse had started … and he was the only participant.

He had cried a lot – which would usually be all right, but not during movies like The Naked Gun.

That´s when he decided to see a doctor.

The good man asked him: "You ever considered conversational therapy?"

And Javert had answered: "I do that. And usually the people confess their crimes after a session."

The doctor prescribed him some medication. Anti-depressants.

Javert had never understood why medication like that had such highly complicated names. There were five Xs in there, a few As, another X and usually they ended with -min, -fin, or -rintintin. Fact was they couldn´t be pronounced.

Why not just call them … Jean? For example. Brain-drops. Something simple that clarified what they did to you.

Probably for the same reason why Darth Vader was not called Peppy Poopnose. The name was supposed to tell you: You are in some deep shit, friend.

It also managed a great introduction for the side effects. The four meter long patient information leaflet read along other things: usual side effects: dry mouth, dizziness, pounding heart, and most important: depressions!

Cool thing, Javert thought. That could be funny. Would be interesting to see if he would recognize those as the side effect depressions or if he would think them the normal depressions. Now he understood why people with depression had such a hard time getting over this. They must think their pills didn´t work. But now he knew they were wrong. The pills worked perfectly. Only because of the side effect depressions they simply didn´t notice.

That must be like driving to the carwash, he figured, and after you left there´d be a smiling employee who throws a pile of horseshit on your hood, uttering the words: "You should get this cleaned, Monsieur."

Anyway. Rare side effects were sweaty feet, bowel gas and tiredness (but unexplainable insomnia during late night shows).

Very rare: Coma. And the absolutely realistic manifestations of Disney characters which usually are very cute and give tips for better housekeeping.

**...**

Strange enough, Javert suffered barely any side effects. Except for the dizziness at times. He noticed this at the training center one day, where the special attraction had been a centrifugal compressor – one of those things NASA used to train their astronauts.

His adjutant was with him that day, thanks God. Javert called out to him, that it had been a bad idea to use this thing. Who had gotten this goddamn idea anyway that police men needed such a training? The stupid swirling made everything spin like crazy and the damn pills didn´t help a damn bit, if they were even to blame. Duprey got the order to STOP THE GODDAMN THING NOW!

Duprey only answered, calmly: "Inspector. We´re still waiting in the line."

Javert at last collapsed and called it a day.

**...**

Anyway, Javert felt much better after a while. Even though the pills were low dosed they started to help. Only one time he took two at once, with a big beer. And that was why, for an entire evening of giving lectures to new cadets at the police academy, he had an animal sitting next to him. And the animal was talking.

It said: "Olá. You can call me Puss in Boots. Wax stains in tablecloth can be removed by putting blotting paper underneath while you press it."

Wow, Javert thought. Thanks a lot.

But maybe the cat had been real after all, and he had imagined the police academy instead. He´d never be able to tell. But he felt much better. By now the depressions were suffering from him. That´s how it should be after all.

Being active had helped him a lot. Getting some more or less fulfilling hobbies, for example. For the time being he was busying himself with single-handedly recording an audio book based on the world atlas. It went well so far. His latest chapter sounded well enough in his ears:

"Africa. Beige, beige, sand I figure, brown, mountains, dark brown, water overhead, blue, blue, blue, riffles, borderline red, equator, jagged lines, end of page."

Anyway. Depressions are something one should take serious. Javert had learned quite a lot from it. To take care of himself, for example. Or to even talk about it. Sometimes to total strangers – it sounded funny but it was easier at times (and sometimes they went to prison much calmer after that sort of talk, which was a great side effect). He had learned to accept help, to admit that he needed this help. And most importantly he had learned … that tinged silverware could get shiny again, when you polished it with toothpaste. At least according to Puss in Boots.

Who knew.

* * *

><p><strong>Torsten Sträter (hilarious comedian extraordinaire) really has depressions. So you can be sure this is a first hand report from an affected person (sort of). If you feel you recognize yourself in this, let me quote Sträter himself for a sec: "You have good days and you have bad days. Important is to find something that gives you something. I know that is hard, for sometimes there seems to be nothing that gives you anything. But try. And most important, accept help. Don´t shy away from pills. They are called psychotropic drugs and even though that sounds batshit crazy dangerous, they do help. You won´t suddenly sit in a corner drooling or anything. You can get back to yourself a little, and still be able to do your stuff every day. You´ll stay completely yourself. Your sensations will be dulled a bit but the good things is that goes for the bad sensations too. Don´t listen to those who tell you: come on, that´s just a phase, you´ll be okay. Fuck this. Important is what you feel. First of all, go see a doctor. And be active. With something. No matter what."<strong>

**I was at the verge of depression myself, once in my life – to make an example of talking about and admitting it :) Writing was the one thing that gave ME something. And I´m well aware how blessed I am that I never needed pills. Lucky me.**

**So now before I turn this into a therapy session, let me just finish here, by saying: You see now, it can get better. If you are depressive yourself … or know someone who is. Take care.**


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